


Little Earthquakes

by UneJolieOrdure



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fishing, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape/Non-con Elements, Recovery, Sexual Abuse, Sisters, Slow Burn, So trigger-heavy tbh, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Therapy, There's a dog tho does that help, like so slow
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-10 05:43:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15284925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UneJolieOrdure/pseuds/UneJolieOrdure
Summary: Two months ago, Sansa broke off her engagement and moved back in with her parents. Three weeks ago, she tried to kill herself with a handful of Ativan and an expensive bottle of cherry-flavored vodka. An hour ago, they let her out of the psych ward with a referral to a therapist, a prescription for an antidepressant, and a diagnosis of C-PTSD. What now?





	1. Silent All These Years

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of a therapeutic fic for me. I don't have a lot of time to write right now, so I'm kind of slowly eking this out in my spare time at work. I know I have a lot of other shit on the back burner that I haven’t finished, but…sorry, I actually have no excuse, I’m actually just garbage. I don’t like it either. All the warnings about suicide, abuse, rape, etc. triggers should be heeded, because while they occur in the past, there are flashbacks. Title and chapter titles are taken from Tori Amos' 1992 album "Little Earthquakes," which you need to listen to if you haven't already. It's 2018. Come on, man. 
> 
> Also, this is literally apropos of nothing, but I lowkey pictured Joffrey looking like a white Soundcloud rapper circa 2017 and it really inappropriately cracked me up while I was writing this. He’s working on his new mixtape right now and it certainly will not be fire, fam.

Sansa didn’t have to wait long for her mother to pull up outside the hospital in her green Subaru. Cat was nothing if not punctual. The nurse who was waiting at the curb with her handed her the paper bag that contained all the items she had come into the hospital with, all the dangerous things that she was now free to kill herself with. Of course, now that she was loaded up with the max recommended dose of Zoloft, she didn’t want to die quite as much, but she appreciated having the option available. 

“Good luck!” the nurse exclaimed with a bright smile. She was sincere, but Sansa imagined that she was being bitterly sarcastic. _Good luck. You’re going to need it, you stupid, selfish bitch._

“Thanks,” she murmured. She climbed into the passenger seat and set the paper bag on her pajama-clad lap.

“Hey, you. Where do you want to get lunch?” Catelyn asked, appraising her eldest daughter with a sort of brisk, motherly pity in her sharp greenish eyes.

“Can we just go home?” 

“I thought I’d take you out for lunch.” For the briefest instant, Cat’s ever-present positivity wavered. Sansa sighed. Restaurants made her nervous. Any situation that involved more than two people in the same room together made her nervous. She liked to be in total and complete control of her surroundings, always, and if she couldn’t have that, then she wanted to stay in her room, alone, safe. “Okay. We’ll go home, if that’s what you want.” Cat put the car in gear, obviously trying against all odds to keep things light. She filled Sansa in on what she had been missing out on as she drove; Rickon had started soccer camp, Arya was taking summer classes at college, Robb was coming home to visit for the fourth of July. Sansa nodded along and hummed occasionally to show that she was listening. She knew that her mother was desperate not to talk about _it_ , and she certainly wasn’t going to press the issue.

They finally pulled into their subdivision, into the cul-de-sac that they had lived in for Sansa’s entire life. The cluster of tan-and-white, identical mini-mansions were clustered around an acre of rolling, green golf course. Sansa did not know why her parents had picked this particular place to settle, since neither of them played golf, but it was a safe place, a nice place, and Lady liked to run around on the green even though it wasn’t technically allowed.

“Your dad is looking forward to seeing you,” Catelyn prattled on. “He’s been saying something about taking you fishing, but don’t feel like you have to go just for him. He has plenty of people to fish with.” She would have turned her nose up at the idea of fishing a few years ago, but now, the prospect sounded nice. Nobody but she and her father to worry about. Water. Wind. She still didn’t want to touch the worm to bait the hook, but Ned would do that for her, just as had when she had been a child. 

The house was quiet, these days. Arya lived by the university with her boyfriend, an Eastern European transplant who worked in the religious studies department of the school. Robb and Jon were out of state. Bran was in the thick of high school, which meant he was usually out with his friends. It was mostly just her parents, their youngest, and their twenty five-year-old red-headed invalid who had a BA in business marketing and no skills to go with it. 

She was greeted first by a massive husky who almost bowled her over in its excitement. Lady jumped on her mistress, licking whatever exposed skin she could find, her tail practically making circles, jabbering throatily in the strange way that huskies can.

“Oh, Lady, stop it,” Cat tsked, shutting the door behind her. “She’s been inconsolable without you, Sansa. She just lays in the den and looks out the window.” Sansa bent down to let Lady kiss her face. She held the dog’s head in her hands and scratched her behind the ears.

“That’s my baby girl,” she crooned. When Sansa stood up, her father was approaching, already opening his arms. 

“Angel!” Ned exclaimed, grinning. She folded gratefully into the hug. Sansa’s relationship with her father was simple. Her mother had expectations, hopes, fears, judgements—her father just liked to see her, no matter how she was or what she was doing. 

“I missed you, daddy,” she said quietly.

“I missed you too.”

“I’ll make some lunch,” Cat said from the end of the hall.

“I’m really not hungry, mom. I think I’m going to take a nap.” 

“Okay,” Cat replied, obviously nervous about the prospect of her daughter being left alone. Nevertheless, she allowed her to climb the stairs, toting her paper bag. 

“Sansa!” She turned back to her mother at the top of the stairs. “Leave your door open.” She nodded, pressing her lips together to keep what was either a mean laugh or a sob inside.

Sansa curled up on the twin bed that she had slept on as a teenager, on top of the comforter. They had taken the pink shag rug out of the room—she had puked cherry vodka and pills all over it. They had probably decided it wasn’t worth a steam cleaning. The room was painted a light coral color, and everything in it was white. White bedspread, white dresser, white desk with a charming white landline circa 2007 sitting on it. On the bare floor were three open suitcases and a trash bag—all her worldly possessions. She had never bothered to unpack. There were clothes and toiletries strewn everywhere. High school Sansa, who had created this light, serene space, would have been horrified at the mess, but current Sansa knew that she only had so much energy to burn, and none of it could be wasted on cleaning. Normally, she had trouble falling asleep, but the experience of stepping out of the hospital for the first time in three weeks had been so draining that she quickly nodded off.

Sansa dreamed that she was in the apartment she had shared with Joff. They were fighting because he had kicked her dog—hurting Lady was the only thing he could do that could make her fight back. Later on, she had sent Lady to live with Arya because she couldn’t shake the feeling that Joffrey was going to kill the dog just to get under her skin. Her sister had asked why, but she had just said that the rules in their building had changed to exclude animals that weighed over thirty pounds. She had gotten very good at lying.

In the dream, they were in the kitchen, screaming at one another. She couldn’t make out any actual words, just a dull roar. She tried to get on the other side of the kitchen island so that he couldn’t reach her, but he was too fast; he caught her shoulder and slammed her into the refrigerator. Adrenaline pumping, she was on her feet again quickly even though the entire left side of her body felt bruised. She grabbed a knife out of the block and brandished it with a shaking hand, warning him back, but she knew, deep down, that she couldn’t use it against him. He knew it, too. He wrestled the knife out of her grip and tossed it across the room. Even though she couldn’t hear herself doing it, she knew that she was apologizing. His hands were around her neck, and he was choking her while she struggled against him futilely; she was starting to black out when the world went sideways. He had dropped her on the kitchen floor. He stepped over her on his way out of the apartment.

She woke up mid-panic, struggling to draw breath, sweaty and shaking. She hurried into the bathroom that was attached to her bedroom and dry heaved into the sink. Sansa looked at herself in the mirror, still hunched over the sink, as she tried to stop hyperventilating. Her long red hair was piled up on top of her head in a ratted bun that she hadn’t taken out in days. She was wearing a tie-dye t-shirt that proclaimed to the world that she had been a high school cheerleader and a pair of much-too-big sweatpants. Her eyes were bloodshot and her face was fox-thin. She pressed her forehead into the glass of the mirror to cool herself down and stood there for a solid, unbroken five minutes, holding her chest, until she thought she could move again without gagging. She thought about changing her clothes or taking a shower, but the prospect was, frankly, overwhelming. Still shaky, she shuffled downstairs and into the kitchen, where she knew she would find her mother.

“Arya is coming over for dinner. She’ll be here in a few,” Cat said, obviously relieved to see her again. She was bustling around, in her element as she cooked. 

“Is she bringing her boyfriend?” Sansa wrinkled her nose. She sat down at one of the bar stools at the granite countertop.

“Yes. You know she brings him everywhere.”

“I don’t like him.”

“Try to be nice. She likes him a lot.” _I liked Joffrey a lot._

“He’s like ten years older than her. It’s gross.” She was well aware that she was not the best candidate to judge what was gross and what was not in a relationship, but the thought of her impulsive little sister being groomed by some older weirdo was still hard to stomach. 

“Oh, Sansa, I think that sort of thing is more acceptable where he comes from. Anyway, Arya is very mature for her age. I’m just glad she’s over her lesbian phase.” Cat rolled her eyes, sinking her freckled hands into a bowl of raw ground beef and onions, mixing it up for a meatloaf.

“That’s homophobic, mom.”

“Sorry. I’m just saying. Arya was not a lesbian. She was just doing it to rebel.” All the Stark children had gone to Catholic school. Sansa had never minded—the nuns liked her, so they had never mentioned it when she had rolled her skirt up too short or wore jewelry that broke dress code. Arya, on the other hand, and been universally reviled. It was only her mother’s good standing in the church that kept her from being outright expelled.

Just then, they heard the door open and close. They had spoken of the devil, and the devil had, indeed, appeared. 

“We’re here!” Arya called from the foyer. She bounced into the kitchen, five feet of pure energy dressed all in black, and launched herself at her older sister for a back-breaking hug. “How does it feel to be a free woman?” she asked as she pulled back. Sansa just shrugged. Arya's boyfriend trailed after her more slowly, holding a casserole dish. Cat wiped her hands on a towel and went to greet her guest.

“Nice to see you, Jaqen! What’s this?” 

“I made spinach dip,” he replied in his thick accent, extending the offering.

“Oh, how thoughtful! Thank you, honey.” She took the tinfoil off the top of the dish and could be seen physically trying not to recoil. The spinach dip did not look like spinach dip. It was, somehow, brown. Cat put the tinfoil back on and set it on the counter.

“I want to talk to you alone later, okay?” Arya whispered to her sister, who nodded.

Dinner with Arya was never awkward. She always had stories to tell, and when she ran out of material, then Jaqen could be counted on to regale them with tales from the old country. Sansa didn’t have to say a word. Ned returned shortly before the meal started with Bran and Rickon, who he had picked up from soccer camp and a friend’s house, respectively. They both hugged Sansa, but with little enthusiasm. She thought that maybe they were afraid of her, but then again, maybe she just smelled bad.

Sansa ate very little. She had always been thin, but over the past few years, she had lost close to twenty pounds. Most of the time, her stomach was curled into a tight fist. Everyone noticed her picking at her small square of meatloaf disinterestedly, but nobody said anything. They pretended to be absorbed in Rickon's description of the totally sick goal he had scored that day. While Jaqen was helping Cat with the dishes, Arya dragged Sansa upstairs and into her bedroom.

“Are you okay?” Arya asked, picking her way deftly through the mess and sitting down on the bed. “I know mom and dad are full of bullshit, as usual. They didn’t talk about it even once while you were in there. They didn’t even talk about it the day it happened, when you were still unconscious in the hospital. They drive me insane. They’re so Catholic and repressed.”

“I’m okay.” Sansa sat down beside her sister.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’m on an antidepressant and I have a therapy appointment for this week.” This did not seem to appease Arya.

“Okay. I don’t want to upset you, but…Joffrey shouldn’t fucking get away with this, Sansa.”

“What do you want me to do?” she asked, unable to hide her irritation. “I’m not going to court. I already told you that. I can’t put myself through that right now.” Not only that, but she was missing huge swathes of memory. The doctor in the hospital had explained that this was normal, that trauma could affect memory retention, but it meant that she was an unreliable witness at best. ER records would back up her story, but who was to say that she wasn’t just some dumb, clumsy bitch who was bitter after a bad break-up?

“I know, I know. I’m just saying. He shouldn’t. Jaqen knows some people he could call. They could just rough him up a little, so maybe he thinks twice about doing it again.”

“You’re going to have your boyfriend put a hit out on my ex.”

“Not a hit. Nobody gets paid. Or killed. These guys just don’t like assholes who hit women. It’s kind of a…vigilante thing.”

“No. Absolutely not. That would just make everything worse.” She wanted Joffrey to forget that she existed. She hadn’t plugged her phone in when she got home because she didn’t want to see the backlog of texts and voicemails she would undoubtedly have. The city wasn’t that big; surely word had gotten around to him that she had tried to off herself. He would sweep in full of sympathy, mad with worry for her well-being, and before she knew it, she would be back in his apartment on the west side wearing the glitzy engagement ring that she had hidden at the bottom of her jewelry box.

“If you’re sure. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to.”

“Thank you.”

“Want me to stay here tonight? So you’re not stuck here with just mom and dad and the boys? We could have a sleepover.” Arya nudged Sansa, who didn’t react. “Paint nails. Do hair. Tell funny mental hospital stories.”

“It’s not funny, Arya,” Sansa snapped, then waved off the apology she could see forming on her sister’s lips. “It’s fine. Go home. I’m tired, anyway.” Arya stood up, frowning, and nodded.

“I’ll see you soon, okay? I’m only taking two classes this summer, and Jaqen works all the time. I’ll make sure mom doesn’t talk you into going to a basket-weaving class or something ass-stupid like that.”

“Fine,” Sansa said, looking down at her dirty rainbow socks. When her sister left the room, she stretched out on the bed, buried her face in the pillow, and let out a short, high scream. 

***

It took Ned a week to convince his daughter to go fishing with him. She had finally agreed after her mother threatened to take her to get a manicure; a quiet hour or two on the lake was definitely preferable to the crowded, noisy mall on a Saturday. It took Sansa a long time to coax herself into semi-presentable clothing and out of the house. By the time she got to the lake, Ned already had the boat in the water, but that wasn’t what kept her sitting in the car for an extra ten minutes, heart racing, nauseous, and clutching her keys.

Her father wasn’t alone on the dock. Standing beside him was another man a good few inches taller, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, which clashed with Ned’s cargo shorts and dorky, floppy fishing hat. She finally forced her legs to move, to climb out of the car she had borrowed from her mother, to walk toward the dock. As she approached, she could see that the intruder on their father-daughter time wasn’t just any large, intimidating man; he was a large, intimidating man with half a Freddy Krueger face, wearing a terrible scowl. He obviously had not expected to be joined by a third fishing buddy, either. 

“There you are! This is Sandor,” Ned said when she approached. “His crew did the back patio when you were in college, remember? Sandor, this is my older daughter, Sansa.” She did vaguely remember coming home and there being a crew of men in the backyard tearing up the grass and generally making a lot of noise, but she didn’t remember this man in particular. She had been intensely, fatally self-involved in college.

“Nice to meet you,” she forced out. She was afraid that he was going to go for the handshake, but he seemed to sense that she didn’t want to be anywhere near him and kept his distance. 

“Let’s get out there, why don’t we?” Ned said, undeterred by Sansa’s lack of enthusiasm. He tossed her a pole. “Can’t keep those fish waiting!” Sansa tried to smile, but she was sure that it looked more like a grimace of pain.


	2. Leather

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa’s therapist won’t stop nagging her about stupid shit like “safety” and “not killing herself.” She hangs out with a friendly landscaping crew in a suburban Burger King. Arya and Sansa celebrate the first ever Sister Day, which does not go as planned due to a grievous fashion emergency.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here’s a fact that’s not fun at all: the year after a woman leaves an abusive relationship is the most dangerous. It’s when she’s most likely to be murdered by her abuser. 
> 
> See the end notes for a fact that _is_ fun. 
> 
> Just FYI, this chapter is the end of the bit that I had drafted as part of my pre-writing, so my updates are likely to be a lot slower from here on out. Sorry in advance!

“I’m thinking about redoing the front yard to match the back,” Ned said after forty-five consecutive minutes of silence.

“It’ll run you about the same price,” Sandor grunted without looking at the other man.

“Great, great.” He took a sip of beer number two. Sansa had been offered a semi-cold Busch light from the cooler at her feet, but she had politely declined. She hadn't had a drink since she had chugged as much cherry vodka as she had been able to keep down, chasing the plastic taste of pill capsules with the nauseous fruity burn. Besides that, she did not need to add an alcohol dependency to her ever-growing list of issues.

Sansa was sitting on the middle seat between her father and the stranger, stiff and uncomfortable, clutching her fishing pole and staring down at the greenish water. It was clear that the pair of men didn’t do a whole lot of talking while they fished, and she was more than okay with that. The lake was a small, man-made body of water surrounded by forest on three sides and by a road on the other. There were a few other boats anchored here and there, sitting like unwieldy birds on top of the glassy water, but they were mostly alone. Ned’s boat was small; he had insisted upon buying a used monstrosity full of holes and fixing it up himself (with the help of his sons and occasionally Arya) even though he had more than enough money to get a much better, brand new vessel. It was, as he had put it, a family project, and he was very proud of it. 

“How ya doing, angel?” her father asked, dipping his head to get a look at Sansa's face.

“I’m fine.”

“Let me know if you get hungry or have to pee or anything.” _Or if you’re about to dive off the side of the boat and drown yourself._

“I’m fine, daddy.” There was another ten solid minutes of silence, punctuated with some throat-clearing and beer-sipping, before something began to tug on Sansa’s line. She froze. 

“Reel ‘er in!” Ned urged. She began to turn the handle; whatever was on the hook came easily toward the boat, then out of the water. It was a little bluish fish, swinging from the line, the hook through its lip. Sandor caught it and unhooked it, then offered it to Sansa.

“It’s a bluegill,” he informed her. “A real fucking small one.” She recoiled from the flopping creature, her eyes drawn to the blood dripping from its mouth, the gaudy shine of its scales in the sunshine, the hopeless bulging of its beady eye. 

“I don’t want to touch it,” she squeaked, closing her eyes. She didn’t open them again until she heard a small _plop,_ a reliable sign that the bluegill had been released again. She stared at the bubbles it had left behind. It was going to die anyway, probably. She'd read somewhere that most fish that were caught and released did. Her father put a hand on her back, and a visible jolt went through her entire body, as if he had struck her. He withdrew quickly.

“Let’s head on in,” Ned said quietly.

As soon as the boat hit the shore, she was climbing out, slogging shin-deep in scummy water. She made her way to the car without stopping or looking back, leaving a drip trail through the parking lot, her tennis shoes squishing on her feet.

“Wait a minute…Sansa!” her father called after her, but she didn’t slow down. She got in the car, slammed the door, and thumped her forehead down on the steering wheel. She should have gone for the manicure.

***

Sansa saw Dr. Targaryen, a woman with long, silvery-blonde hair and startling eyes who insisted that her patients call her Dany, once a week at the hospital where she had been an in-patient. The doctor wasn’t much older than she was, a fact which felt like a punch in the gut every time she thought about it. Sansa herself hadn’t had a full-time job in years, much less a career. Joffrey had wanted her to stay home, to be his full-time fiancée. Now she saw that he had been systematically crippling her, emotionally, socially, and financially, until she had no choice but to rely on him for everything. 

The office was small, containing a desk with a large desktop computer, a bookshelf stuffed to bursting with psychology textbooks and self-help workbooks, one rolling office chair for Dany, and one uncomfortable green pleather chair for Sansa. The sterile white walls were decorated with motivational posters and flyers with the number for the suicide hotline printed on them in bold lettering. They were mid-session, discussing Sansa’s transition from her apartment to her parents’ house.

“Had you ever tried to leave him before?” Dany was asking. She was relaxed, beautiful in blue linen, with her legs crossed, her face the picture of interest and concern. Sansa wondered how she could put all her emotions aside just like that. She never showed surprise or disgust, discomfort or disappointment, no matter what awful things Sansa told her. 

“A million times. I’d pack my things and go to stay at a friend’s house for a few nights, but eventually, he’d come by and get me.”

“What was the longest you stayed away?”

“Probably a week.” Sansa hated when the woman fired questions at her like this. It made her feel as if she were being interrogated, as if she had done something wrong. She pulled one of her knees up to her chin protectively, resting her heel on the edge of the chair. 

“You’ve been separated from him for more than two months now, right? What made this last time different?” Apparently sensing her patient's discomfort, she added gently, “Remember: there are no wrong answers here.”

“It was just worse than usual.” She hesitated. She didn’t think she could talk about it, not in any detail. A wave of shame and grief so overpowering that it was almost physical blocked her throat. “He beat me up, I went to the ER, and while I was there I called my mom. She came and picked me up. Being with my parents instead of Margaery has helped.” Margaery Tyrell, Sansa's best friend since they had been co-captains of the cheer squad in high school, had always been too self-involved to see the alarming reality of Sansa and Joff’s relationship. She saw it as a tumultuous, on-again off-again soap opera drama that involved perhaps more yelling and shoving than was strictly normal, but only because their love was so passionate. Sansa had never been able to bring herself to be fully honest. She didn’t think Margaery would have understood even if she’d had the whole story. 

Dany tastefully ignored her omission, though it was easy to tell that it hadn’t gone unnoticed. “Do you feel supported by your family?”

“They love me a lot,” she said haltingly. “But I don’t think they really understand. I could never tell them everything, so how can I expect them to? They think I’m…being dramatic. Except my sister.” She thought guiltily about how she had rebuffed Arya at dinner. “She gets it, I think.”

“Why do you think your sister is different?”

“She had a lot of behavioral problems when she was younger. They had her on Adderall and every other thing. She’s alright now. She’s in college and everything. But I think she understands how it feels to be…outside of this bubble of perfection my parents have tried to create around all of us.”

“Are you close with your sister?”

“Not really.” She hesitated. “I’d like to be. I think she would, too.”

“Good! It’s so important to have a support system you trust when you’re undergoing such radical changes in your life. Now I have to ask, like I do every time: do you feel safe where you live? Locks on all the doors, windows, everything? Changing up your daily routine so that your movements are unpredictable? Screening calls, check-ins with your family, thinking about that protection order? I know it’s a lot to process, especially when you’re so symptomatic, but remember that keeping you safe is our number one priority right now.”

“I feel safe and everything,” she said, then paused guiltily, fidgeting with a loose string on her sleeve. “I still haven’t blocked his number.” Dany just smiled kindly.

“We’ll work on that for next week, alright? Any thoughts of hurting or killing yourself or anyone else?”

“No,” Sansa lied. She weighed her options every day, but her failure to complete her first attempt had led to a draconian crackdown at the Stark house. The liquor was under lock and key. Somebody had flushed the rest of the Ativan. The kitchen knives mysteriously disappeared from the counter when Cat left the house, and nobody left their razors lying around in the bathroom. Ned's hunting rifle was no longer in its customary spot in the basement. It was either hang herself with an electrical cord or drink bleach, and neither option sounded like a death she wanted for herself. Not yet, at least. She wasn't that desperate yet. 

“Great.” Dany clapped her hands together and stood up to open the door. “I’ll see you next week, Sansa.”

***

Much to Sansa’s unending horror, her father hadn’t been making small talk when he had mentioned that he was considering landscaping their front yard. A few days after their ill-fated fishing expedition, she woke up to the sound of a heavy engine gunning and men yelling outside her window. 

She got up, got dressed, and crept through the house on tiptoes, trailed by a confused Lady, peeking into each room with a mounting sense of dread. Finally, she was forced to conclude that nobody else was home. They had left her alone with a yard full of strangers. Sansa squared up as if she were going into battle. She felt like the kid from _Home Alone,_ abandoned and facing down an unknown outside threat.

“Come on, sweet girl,” she said to her dog, who wagged her tail and turned in an enthusiastic circle. “Let’s see what we’re dealing with here.” Sansa opened the front door, leaving the outer glass door closed, and peeked out. She saw four youngish men, some of whom were moving equipment and huge bags of mulch off the back of a large truck bearing the logo for _Clegane Bros. Landscaping._ Some of them were busy taking measurements of the yard. Overseeing their activities was Ned’s fishing buddy Sandor. Occasionally, he shouted an order, which the younger men obeyed quickly like busy little worker bees. As she watched, he glanced over toward the house, noticed her standing there, and made a beckoning motion.

She opened the glass door a crack.

“Hey,” he called. “C’mere a minute.” She approached cautiously. She felt a little less paranoid about his massive presence now that she wasn't trapped in the middle of a lake with him, but that didn't mean that she could let her guard down. He indicated two bushes sitting side by side with their roots wrapped in twine and burlap. One had a few pink and white flowers, and the other was shorter with little puffs of white petals. “Which one do you like?”

“They’re both nice.” She was terrified of giving the wrong answer.

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“That one.” She pointed to the pink and white one.

“Thank you.” With that, he turned his attention back to the workers, who were taking all of the yelling and scowling remarkably cheerfully. Sansa wanted to cry just hearing someone else being reprimanded for their incorrect handling of a rototiller. She scurried back up to the porch and into the house. 

“I think it’s gonna be okay,” she told Lady, shutting and bolting the door. “As long as we stay in here and keep ourselves busy.” 

Sansa’s morning project was to do one thing just for fun, just for herself. Dany had insisted that she try to get back into her old hobbies, even if she didn’t do it perfectly the first time. Sansa sat down on the floor of the den with a crochet hook and a ball of yarn. Lady curled up beside her, doing her best impersonation of a guard dog. She had never been all that good at crocheting, even when she had done it regularly, but it was something to do with her hands. She put on her favorite movie— _Flashdance_ —to tune out the sound of the men outside and got to work. Sansa was not going to set herself up for failure. She was going to try something simple: a coaster. Just a square. 

Unfortunately, crocheting was a lot harder than she remembered it being. She was frowning, frustrated, at her knotted fucking failure of a square while Jeanie biffed her ice skating performance to “Gloria” on the television when she heard a knock on the front door. She dropped her hook in disgust and padded to the door, more annoyed than afraid now, and looked through the peephole. It was Sandor again. Cracking the door open, she waited wordlessly for whatever he wanted to tell her.

“We’re going for lunch,” he informed her. “Will you be alright here alone?” It struck her that from his perspective, he and his crew weren’t a mortal threat: they were a sort of protection from harm while her parents and brothers were gone.

“I’ll be okay. Thanks.” He nodded and started down the porch steps toward the already-running truck. 

Just then, Sansa’s phone started to buzz. She felt an immediate thrill of anxiety. Only three people ever called her: her mother, her doctor’s office, and Joffrey. She took it out of her pocket, hoping for Cat or the billing department at the hospital, but no such luck. Of course it was him. She shut the door and wandered out onto the porch. There would never be a better time to answer him; nobody was around to ask who she was talking to, or to judge her for saying whatever unsavory things she was going to have to say. He was never going to stop calling, and the longer she ignored him, the angrier he would be when he finally got ahold of her. _When,_ not _if._ She sat down on the porch steps and answered the phone. 

“I don’t want to talk,” she said immediately. “So just stop calling, okay?”

“Come on, Sansa,” Joff said coaxingly on the other end of the line. “We have to talk this over. We’re engaged.”

“We are not engaged anymore. I told you that.” She looked down at her left hand, where the tan line she’d had when she had first taken the engagement ring off was no longer visible. It had been long enough for him to get it through his head that she wasn’t coming back this time, but he was talking as if she had just walked out the door, as if he had every confidence that he could get her back. 

“Let me pick you up, baby girl. We can go that coffee shop you like on Third Street and talk it over. If you want to end it, then we can end it. I just don’t think you’re thinking clearly. I heard from Margaery that you were in the hospital for a couple weeks. Are you okay?” Margaery couldn’t keep her fucking mouth shut. Sansa could have killed her. Whose side was she on?

“It’s none of your business.”

“Your business is always gonna be my business. I care about you. Are you at your parents’ house? I could be there in ten minutes.” She squeezed her eyes closed. This was the point in the conversation when she had always acquiesced before. Sansa had a weakness for being whisked away from her problems. She hated living with her parents. She hated facing the relics of the person she had once been and trying to reconcile the woman she had become with the ambitious, intelligent, highly social young woman who had lived in the room she was occupying. She wanted to leave. She wanted to start again. She wanted someone to pull up in an expensive car, pick her up, and tell her what to do next, step by step. In a sick sort of way, it was comforting to have someone else control every aspect of her life. There were never any hard decisions to make on her own. 

“Don’t come,” she said finally, sounding stauncher than she felt. “I’ll call the police.”

“Call the police for what? I just wanna talk to you. That’s all.”

“What could you possibly say to me now?” She was starting to get really and truly upset; her voice rose in pitch and volume. 

“I want to apologize to you in person. Not over the phone or in a text.”

“I don’t want to hear it. I don’t believe that you’re sorry.” Would it matter if he was really, truly sorry? She had considered this dilemma before. If she could somehow read his mind and tell for certain that he actually felt real, painful, substantial guilt, would she feel any better? Would she be more or less willing and able to take him back?

“I am! What I did…you know I wouldn’t have done it if I had known. I know I can be an asshole, but I love you.”

“You don’t love me.” She was crying now, her voice barely comprehensible. She felt like an idiot, or worse, a crazy person. 

“Yes, I do, baby girl. Don’t cry. I’m turning the car around right now.”

“Please don’t,” she moaned. “I’ll call you tomorrow, okay? We can meet up then. Just not right now. I’m watching Rickon for my mom.” It was a lie, but it did the trick. Joff would do pretty much whatever he could to avoid interacting with children. 

“Okay. If that's what you want. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. I love you.” She hung up. She’d thought that the landscaping crew was gone, but when she looked up, she saw that Sandor was standing by the truck, watching her. He had obviously heard the entire conversation, and was coming back towards the porch.

“That your boyfriend?”

“Ex.” She wiped her nose on the back of her hand. 

“The cops won't do anything unless you have a protection order,” he said matter-of-factly. She nodded mutely. Her therapist had been telling her the same thing for weeks, but for some reason, it sounded more convincing coming out of this virtual stranger’s mouth. “Your dad said that you’d had a bad break up, but he didn't mention that it was a call the fucking police break up. Come to lunch with us. I’d feel pretty damn irresponsible leaving you here alone.” 

Sansa hesitated. All she really wanted to do was go and hide under the comforter in her bedroom, but the thought that Joffrey might show up while she was home alone terrified her. Another part of her was so used to doing what she was told, to following someone else around as if in a dream, that she latched onto the command like a drowning person who had been thrown a life ring.

“Okay,” she said meekly. “I’ll change.” He snorted.

“You look fine. We’re going to the Burger King around the corner.” She slipped on her mother’s flip-flops and followed him over to the truck, where the rest of the crew was waiting. One of the younger men was sitting in the front seat, but Sandor opened the door and evicted him.

“There’s no room in the back!” he complained.

“Pick a lap,” Sandor said without much sympathy. There was general commotion and a lot of “no homo”-ing as the displaced man crawled in on top of his coworkers. Sansa felt bad, but she kept quiet. Better him sitting on laps than her. She climbed into the front seat and set to work making herself as small as possible. The ride to the Burger King was short, which was a blessing, given that the sweaty men gave off an appalling aroma in such close quarters. She had forgotten her wallet, but Sandor bought her some French fries. 

“I’ll put that two-fifty on your dad’s tab,” he said, handing her the tray. She couldn’t quite tell if he was joking or not, but it seemed like he was joking, so she gave him a watery smile. She ate her fries silently while the crew talked sports. None of them so much as glanced her way. It was strangely comforting. She felt like a fly on the wall, or an anthropologist watching some strange foreign ritual take place. By the end of the lunch, she had even stopped flinching every time one of them made a gesture or raised their voice. When everyone had finished eating, Sandor stood up and smacked the table.

“Back to work!” he said. “Come on, move it, you ugly sons of bitches.”

“Really, Mr. Clegane? In front of the lady?” one of the younger men japed, but Sandor just rolled his eyes. 

“The lady's heard worse. Get it in gear.” They all piled back into the truck and made their way back to the Stark house. As soon as the truck was in park, Sansa was climbing out. She'd had her fill of close contact with strange men for the day. 

“Thanks,” she called over her shoulder as she made her way to the house, but she wasn't sure if anyone had heard her. Inside, she found Bran in the living room, watching some NatGeo documentary while he texted furiously. 

“Where did you go?” he asked, giving her a look. “Mom said you’re supposed to tell her before you go anywhere.” Now even the kids didn’t trust her. 

“Just out to lunch. It’s a long story. Don’t tell mom. Where is she?”

“She took Rickon to the doctor or the dentist or something.” He was already looking back at his phone, ignoring her. She went up to her room and curled up on the bed, no longer as worried about the landscapers now that she had met them properly and she was no longer home alone, holding down the fort without any backup. 

She dreamed that she was back in the bedroom that she had tastefully decorated in white and navy blue, anchors and mermaids, a cutesy nautical theme. Joffrey threw her down on the immaculately-made bed. Sansa was shitfaced. It was the night of her twenty-third birthday, and she had been bar-hopping with Joff, and Margaery. Joffrey had been their designated driver. In a rare show of chivalry, he hadn’t complained once about their increasingly ridiculous behavior. Margaery was sleeping on their couch, too drunk to find her way home.

He hitched her tight-fitting party dress up around her waist and pulled her underwear down, but nothing really registered as wrong until his weight came down on top of her.

“Stop it, baby,” she said, kicking her legs feebly, as if throwing a temper tantrum in slow motion. “I don’t wanna.”

“Don’t wake Margaery up,” he whispered. She stilled immediately. She had forgotten about Margaery. Her vision blurred, and she blacked out for what must have been only a few minutes before a searing pain revived her. 

“That hurts,” she slurred, but he kissed her to shut her up. Tears welled up in her eyes. She blacked out again, and when she woke up, he was fucking her hard with his hand over her mouth. She couldn’t breathe. Sometimes, his thumb would slip and she would catch a sliver of air through her nose, but it wasn’t enough. Her mind was slowed by the alcohol, but the thought that she might die crept inch by inch into focus. Even though she knew that she had to fight back, she found herself unable to move; for a split second, Sansa gave up entirely. This moment seemed impossibly long, but in reality, it was only a matter of seconds before she blacked out one final time.

She woke up in her childhood bedroom grinding her teeth so hard that it took her a moment to unlock her jaw. Someone was knocking on the door, but she didn’t answer. After a moment, Cat poked her head in. 

“Hello, sleepy. Time for dinner,” she said brightly.

“I’m not hungry,” Sansa croaked.

“Do you at least want to come and sit down with the family?”

“Not right now.” Cat sighed and turned to go without shutting the door. Sansa wanted to get up and close it, but she felt just as paralyzed as she had in her dream, as if she were having a night terror that had lasted for years with no end in sight.

***

The next morning, Sansa laid in bed for an hour after she had woken up, staring at the morning light shifting on the wall and listening to the work going on outside. With only the sound of her rapidly approaching footsteps for warning, Arya burst into the room and plopped down on the bed beside her. 

“It’s sister day!” she exclaimed. 

“What’s sister day?” Sansa asked groggily, eyeing her suspiciously. 

“We’ll get there. First, you have to get vertical, change into something fire, and take these bad boys.” She shook the bottle of Sansa’s pills, which she must have nabbed from the bathroom. Sansa groaned in protest, but it did not deter Arya, who grabbed her by the shoulders and sat her upright as if she weighed nothing. “When did you last shower?”

“Yesterday,” she lied. Arya leaned in close and sniffed her. She made a face.

“Bull-fucking-shit. Get in the shower. I’ll be waiting in the kitchen.” 

Sansa sat on the bed for another ten minutes summoning every scrap of energy that she could before she heaved herself up and into the shower. She didn’t bother with moisturizer and conditioner and all the other things she had once used to make herself pretty and appealing; it was too much work, and besides, she did not want to be pretty. She wanted to be invisible. To that end, she also didn’t want to wear anything that could be described as “fire,” so instead she put on some old, faded leggings and a huge, tacky Metallica t-shirt that had once belonged to one of her brothers, Jon, probably. Robb was too straight-laced to listen to heavy metal. 

Arya was waiting in the kitchen with a box of doughnuts and two coffees. Sweets and a good latte had once been the way to Sansa’s heart, and she was touched that Arya had remembered that, but she wasn’t hungry in the slightest, and coffee just made her anxious nowadays. Nevertheless, she didn't want to seem ungrateful, so she nibbled on a plain doughnut and sipped the coffee sparingly.

“How about them landscapers, huh?” Arya said, wiggling her eyebrows. “You’re a single woman now. How kind of mom and dad to buy a harem of muscular dudes to work right outside your window.”

“I never want to date anyone ever again,” Sansa proclaimed, perhaps just a little dramatically, as she tossed back her pills.

“You don’t have to _date_ them. You look fuckable as hell in that getup.”

“Are you serious?” Sansa glanced down at herself. She looked like a bag lady. 

“So fuckable,” Arya assured her, her mouth full of eclair. Sansa didn’t really want to have sex with anyone ever again either, but she didn’t say that. She just rolled her eyes. 

“Do I get to find out what sister day is yet?”

“Sister day can be anything you want it to be. The true meaning is in your heart, just like Christmas. I thought today we would do one of your fav things.”

“Going back to bed?” Sansa asked hopefully. Arya shot her a disdainful look.

“Shopping.”

Sansa's stomach flip-flopped. “I don’t have any money.”

“Don't you worry your pretty little head about it. Ya girl Arya has a sugar daddy.” Arya dug a credit card out of her purse and flashed it at her sister with a smug smile.

“Oh my God. I’m going to vomit,” Sansa groaned, covering her face.

“I’m kidding! Jesus Christ, loosen up. Jaqen is an adjunct fucking instructor. He doesn’t even have health insurance. Our actual daddy gave me this card for emergencies, and this is a fucking emergency if I say it is.”

“Okay. But I don’t want to go to the mall.” Even on a Tuesday, the mall seemed like an insurmountable challenge. 

“Done deal. We’ll go to a Kohl’s or something.” Carrying their coffees, the sisters made their way out to Arya's car, a 1999 Jeep Wrangler that she drove like she was in a never-ending demolition derby. 

“Hellooooo boys!” Arya trilled as they walked past the landscaping crew. A few of the workers glanced over, chuckling at her theatrics. She waved her hand as if to dismiss them back to their mulching. “As you were.”

“Stop it,” Sansa hissed, but she couldn’t hold back a giggle. “I have to live here.”

“Do you want to come and live with us? There’s only one bedroom, there are roaches, nobody can cook, and we fuck constantly.”

“Why do I speak to you?” The coffee had perked her up a little—or maybe it was the antidepressants—and she felt like maybe, just maybe, they might have a good day.

In the car, Arya pumped her terrible acid house music and bopped around while Sansa cycled through anxious scenarios in her head. She tried to do some of the thing that Dany had suggested—breathing deeply, challenging her thoughts, focusing on the present moment—but she couldn’t shake her feeling of imminent doom. By the time Arya pulled into the parking lot ten minutes later, she was ready to melt down.

“I don’t know if I can,” she blurted as soon as her sister opened the car door. Arya was unfazed.

“Of course you can. I’m with you. We only have to stay inside for…let’s say fifteen minutes. Then we can go to the craft store. I know you love that DIY. We can make flower crowns or something basic like that, you basic-ass bitch.”

“Fifteen minutes?” Sansa repeated anxiously.

“Just fifteen minutes. If we see any irrelevant motherfuckers, I’ll kick their asses.” Running into “irrelevant motherfuckers” wasn’t what she was afraid of. She doubted that anyone who she had known in her former life would be shopping in a Kohl’s on a Tuesday morning. She was having a hard time deciding what she _was_ afraid of. 

They walked into the mostly-empty store and wandered the aisles. Arya was really trying. She normally just trailed behind Sansa, sulking, on the rare occasions when they went shopping together, but today, she led the way, trailing her hand along the garment racks, occasionally remarking on something she thought that Sansa would like. 

“Try this on!” she exclaimed, pulling a little spaghetti-strap floral dress off the rack. 

“Redheads aren’t supposed to wear yellow,” Sansa said, a little of her snobby old self bubbling to the surface.

“What colors _are_ redheads supposed to wear?” Arya asked, without even rolling her eyes. Sansa was thoroughly impressed with her dedication to the true meaning of sister day. 

“Green, blue, white…” Arya nodded, her expression as serious as if she had just been sent on a life or death mission by the president. After some more rummaging around, she came back with the same dress in green.

“Ha! Green,” she crowed triumphantly. “Try it on, redhead.” Sansa couldn’t say no after all that. She took the dress into the changing room, avoiding her reflection as she slipped out of her comfortable clothes and into the dress. She looked in the mirror and immediately wanted to cry. She was too skinny to be pretty. A size small hung on her like a sack, the garment just as shapeless as her body was. Not to mention the puckered reddish scar right next to her shoulder blade that she could see when she turned her head over her shoulder and looked in the mirror, the one from their vacation to Colorado. She was never going to be able to wear anything cute and summery ever again. 

Arya knocked on the door. “Let me see!”

“No,” Sansa called back petulantly. “I look stupid.”

“No way,” Arya scoffed, but she could obviously tell that she was fighting a losing battle. Sansa changed back into her own clothes and hurried out of the dressing room, leaving the dress crumpled on the floor. 

“I want to go home.” Before Arya could protest, she was making a beeline for the exit. All the younger girl could do was follow Sansa out of the store and to the car. They sat in the parking lot in silence for a few minutes, both of them looking straight ahead.

“Do you know how to get a restraining order?” Sansa asked finally.

“Um. Wow. No, but I can sure fucking Google it.” 

***

They got home just as the landscaping crew was packing it in for the day. Arya traipsed right into the house, but Sansa paused by the unfinished flower bed, where Sandor was counting their remaining bags of mulch. She waved the stack of papers in her hand at him.

“I got the application for the restraining order today,” she said. The courthouse had been strangely busy, and it had taken them a few tries to get the right desk. The woman behind the counter had handed her what seemed like a mountain of forms and told her to return them as quickly as possible, along with any and all medical records and police reports related to the case. Sansa didn't know how to get her medical records, let alone police reports, but she had been too overwhelmed to ask. Maybe Dany would help her sort through it all.

“Good,” he said with a somber nod.

“I’m not sure I’ll get it, even after I file all this.” She flipped through the pages, already feeling hopeless about it all. “Plus there's a court hearing. He’s going to get a lawyer…I know he is.” She didn't know why she thought the guy who was redoing her parents' front yard would care about any of her substantial array of problems, but it was nice to talk about it with someone who wasn't part of her over-emotional family or being paid to listen to her. When she wasn't mute, she could be a regular leaky facet, spewing unnecessary details that made everyone around her uncomfortable.

“You should get one too, then,” he said, taking a seat on the porch steps so that he wasn't looming over her.

“I guess so.” She was going to have to ask Ned. He knew a couple of lawyers. Two could play at the “daddy’s money gets me out of trouble” game. 

“Show me a picture.”

She blinked. “Of what?”

“Of the guy.”

“Why?”

“So I know who he is if he comes sniffing around while we’re out here working,” he replied, as if it were obvious. Sansa scrolled through her camera reel (mostly glamour shots of Lady) until she found a picture of she and Joff near the end of their relationship, then handed it to him. She couldn’t remember who had taken it; probably his mother. They were standing outside a restaurant, smiling. She was wearing big sunglasses and a stupid floral romper that was too big for her. He looked like an expensive homeless person. It had probably been one of Cersei’s famous brunches during which she’d get drunk on bottomless mimosas and yell increasingly hurtful things at both of them until they took her home and put her to bed. It was easy to sympathize a little with Joffrey once you had met his mother.

“I know that kid,” Sandor said, squinting at the phone. “We did his mom’s backyard a couple years ago. Put in a stupid fucking koi pond.” Cersei’s koi pond _was_ stupid, though Sansa never would have told her so. She was almost as afraid of Cersei as she was of her son. 

“His mom is…”

“A raging cunt,” he interjected.

“Yeah.” She giggled, a little nervously. “So what are you going to do?”

“What do you mean?”

“If you see him around.”

“Kick his ass. I don’t think I’m in any danger of losing that fight.” He handed the phone back. He was right. He made Joff look tiny by comparison. She couldn’t help but think—if Joff had been able to hurt her as much as he had, what would this man be capable of? He could kill her without even breaking a sweat. The thought made her wish that Arya had stayed outside with her.

“Everyone I know has offered to kick his ass. My dad, my brothers, my little sister…”

“And you don’t like that?” He seemed genuinely surprised.

“Not really. I mean, I appreciate the sentiment, I guess, but…it feels like fighting fire with fire. I feel like they want to do to him what he did to me, but that’s pointless, not to mention impossible. I think it’s more because they’re angry at him and not so much because they really think it will help me. But I don’t know.” She shifted from foot to foot, suddenly afraid that she had said too much. 

“Well, if I see him, I’m still gonna kick his ass,” he said, standing up and brushing the mulch off his pants. She snorted a laugh.

“Okay. You have my permission.”

It wasn’t until much later that night, when she was alone in her room, that Sansa realized that she hadn’t called Joffrey back as she had promised. She took out her phone, stared at the blank screen for a moment, then put it away, terror and resignation warring for space in her gut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here’s a very fun fact: I was messing around on the AO3 tag generator and got “my first time writing horticultural rimming.” Due to all the landscaping going on in this fic, I promptly lost my shit. Dear reader, I so wish that there was horticultural rimming on the horizon for this fic, as it would, indeed, be my first time writing it, but alas, I don’t think it’s in the cards. The slow burn is so slow that we just now got to “speaking to one another without running away in abject terror.” Imagine how long it would take us to get to horticultural rimming. There would be 45 chapters. 
> 
> NEXT TIME: Stay tuned for the horrifying re-traumatization that the U.S. justice system is for battered women feat. dad tears, gangster rap, and plenty of stalking.

**Author's Note:**

> NEXT TIME: What happens when you put the quintessential dad, a girl with a horrible anxiety disorder, and a huge, surly landscaper in a small boat together and arm them with hooks?


End file.
